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Obama agenda: Capitulation

The New York Times: "The Obama administration, ending more than a year of indecision with a major policy reversal, will prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other people accused of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks before a military commission and not a civilian court, as it once planned. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Monday that he has cleared military prosecutors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to file war-crimes charges against the five detainees in the Sept. 11 case."

More: The shift was foreshadowed by stiffening Congressional resistance to bringing Guantánamo detainees into the United States, and by other recent steps clearing the way for new tribunal trials. Still, it marked a significant moment of capitulation in the Obama administration’s largely frustrated effort to dismantle counterterrorism architecture left behind by former President George W. Bush."

“Obama set the spending record, $760 million for the primary and general elections, in 2008. His outlay for 2012 is expected to surpass that benchmark and top $1 billion, even though he is unlikely to face a formidable primary opponent,” the Boston Globe writes, adding that fundraising likely can’t come from small donors. “Analysts say that mobilization will have to extend well beyond the grass-roots level the president envisions and embrace big-money donors as well. In Obama’s campaign for the presidency in 2008, tens of thousands of small-time donors flocked to his campaign, attracted by his message and his position as an outsider. Now, as an incumbent, he will find it harder to cultivate such enthusiasm.”

“The federal government will hit the statutory debt limit by May 16 if Congress does not act, according to the Treasury Department,” The Hill reports.

After giving a policy speech at the University of New Hampshire, Vice President Biden pepped up 50 prominent Democrats and volunteers for Organizing for America in Portsmouth, telling the supporters “that they need to get to work now while the administration focuses on more pressing concerns,” the Boston Globe reports.

President Obama will host a state dinner for Germany’s Angela Merkel June 7.